How U.S. anti-doping agency displays double standards in Olympics

Editor's note: As athletes around the world compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics, a fierce row over anti-doping issues is intensifying among global anti-doping communities. CGTN rolls out a series of reports to show the U.S.' role in the controversy and how its dominance in international sports is harming global anti-doping rules.

Cover-ups, double standards and abuse of power – the doping scandal surrounding American sprinter star Erriyon Knighton is rapidly evolving into a crisis of credibility for the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

In March, tests by the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) for Knighton returned positive results for a banned substance. However, USADA avoided his suspension by attributing it to meat contamination. The U.S. body went as far as declaring that "justice was served" before WADA had even reviewed the case and before the deadline for appeal had expired.

According to a Reuters report published on Wednesday, a USADA scheme has allowed U.S. athletes who had committed doping violations to compete without sanctions for years.

Meanwhile, when it came to contamination cases involving Chinese swimmers, USADA took an entirely different attitude, accusing the China Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA) and WADA of "covering up the truth" and demanding sanctions against Chinese athletes in spite of repeated clarifications by WADA and an independent investigation.

In April, a New York Times story alleged that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive for the same banned substance before the delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and were still permitted to compete. This stirred up frustration and speculation, prompting both WADA and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to defend their decision of clearing the swimmers for competition.

In July, WADA released an official report from Eric Cottier, the Swiss prosecutor tasked with investigating the case. Cottier concluded that there was no evidence of favoritism towards China in WADA's handling of the issue and stated that WADA made a "reasonable" decision by placing trust in the Chinese authorities' explanation that the swimmers had unknowingly ingested a banned heart medication, traces of which were found in the hotel kitchen where the athletes were staying.

Meanwhile in the U.S., a House Committee on China asked the Justice Department and the FBI on May 21 to investigate the case under a federal law that allows probes into suspected doping cases even if they occurred outside the U.S., according to the Associated Press (AP).

The world water sports governing body, World Aquatics, then confirmed to the AP that its executive director Brent Nowicki had been subpoenaed to testify in the U.S. criminal investigation into the Chinese case opened under the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act, which gives U.S. officials what some analysts have called "near-Orwellian powers of prosecution."

The law is "a tool for USADA to put itself above the rest of the world, perhaps even to replace WADA as the global regulator for anti-doping," said WADA President Witold Banka at a session of the IOC in Paris on July 24, two days before the opening of the 2024 Olympic Games.

"This cannot be allowed to stand," said Banka, who warned that if U.S. authorities assert jurisdiction over cases that have nothing to do with them, it risks putting the U.S. outside the global anti-doping system.

Banka also criticized the United States for politicizing anti-doping and called it hypocritical and double standard in a statement published on WADA's official website on June 26. To this day, 90 percent of athletes in the U.S. do not enjoy the protections provided by the World Anti-Doping Code," he noted.

CHINADA on Tuesday criticized USADA's double standard, saying that its "rhetoric about fairness and clean sport runs counter to its actual practices." It noted that doping is not uncommon among U.S. athletes.

An online poll released by CGTN on Friday showed that 95.57 percent of respondents believe that USADA might be covering up U.S. athletes involved in doping. Meanwhile, 96.54 percent criticized it as a classic example of "American double standards" and 95.63 percent seriously suspect that American athletes are involved in widespread false reporting.

(Cover: Images of sports doping. /CFP)